Parrish hot for builders and buyers

Rural community has an abundance of less-expensive, undeveloped land near more more built-up areas

By JOSH SALMAN

It's a solid 35-minute drive from the nearest public beach, the number restaurants are limited and there's not much of a nightlife to speak of, either.

In some corners, there are still more cows grazing pastures than there are homes.

Nonetheless, home builders are flocking to the area of northern Manatee County that now looks like one of Southwest Florida's final frontiers.

Perhaps surprisingly, Parrish has become the new hotspot for residential builders looking to roll out communities.

Though areas like Heritage Harbour and Lakewood Ranch lead the region's housing recovery, Parrish is garnering significant attention from buyers who do not mind driving a few additional minutes north to save a few bucks.

In some cases, a lot of bucks, compared with comparable new homes in Sarasota County's established neighborhoods or Lakewood Ranch.

And with an abundant supply of buildable -- and relatively inexpensive -- land still available for development, Parrish is emerging as the top destination for move-up buyers seeking larger family homes.

Retirees, too, are being drawn to Parrish, especially those who may prefer a new house east of Interstate 75 to an aging one closer to the coast.

Commuters to the Tampa Bay cities to the north are finding Parrish to be a more affordable place to buy, as well, and one without a lot of urban hassles and crowding.

"It has a different appeal to some buyers, and now that the market is changing, with more people looking to new homes, the area is growing pretty fast," said Alan Anderson, executive vice president for the Manatee-Sarasota Homebuilders Association.

"There's a lot of entitled land in Parrish."

Builders have been buying up land in Parrish for much of the past two years. Many of those land transactions are now making their way through Manatee County's Planning Department on the path to becoming completed residential projects. Last week alone, two builders applied to develop more than 350 new homes in Parrish.

Prominent Bradenton homebuilder Carlos Beruff filed plans with the county to build 242 homes on land acquired through a foreclosure auction last year.

Beruff's new Wildcat Preserve community, at 12180 Golf Course Road, will sit on 94 acres that Beruff picked up from an auction in October 2012 for $800,100. The previous owners had defaulted on a $7 million loan from Iberia Bank.

The other 113 homes filed for last week were submitted by Riggs NPC, a Lakewood Ranch company that buys land on behalf of Pat Neal's company, Neal Communities.

In what will become the third phase of the Forest Creek community, the 113-home site is planned on about 40 acres along Red Rooster Road.

It's been an active year in Parrish for Neal.

In late April, affiliates of Neal Communities bought 812 acres of land in Parrish that will be developed in a partnership with a national homebuilder. Neal snapped up two agricultural tracts from CNB REI Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of City National Bank of Florida, for $8 million, records show.

Also in Parrish, Neal is moving forward with a new, 732-home subdivision on land the company bought more than six years ago. Development of the first 320 units in the Silverleaf community is slated to begin within a couple months.

"Parrish is hot because it is situated between three other counties that have almost reached their full residential capacity," said John Neal, a luxury homebuilder under the umbrella of Neal Communities.

"It is just geography," he added. "There's great development potential."

The area also is becoming more desirable for move-up buyers and families that need additional space or want a newer home.

"What people really like about it is it has natural landscape, trees and open space," said Leisa Weintraub, a marketing vice president at Neal Communities.